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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

The Enclosure And Alienation Of Academic Publishing: Lessons For The Professoriate, Wilhelm Peekhaus Jan 2012

The Enclosure And Alienation Of Academic Publishing: Lessons For The Professoriate, Wilhelm Peekhaus

Wilhelm Peekhaus

This paper interrogates and situates theoretically from a Marxist perspective various aspects and tensions that inhere in the contemporary academic publishing environment. The focus of the article is on journal publishing. The paper examines both the expanding capitalist control of the academic publishing industry and some of the efforts being made by those seeking to resist and subvert the capitalist model of academic publishing. The paper employs the concepts of primitive accumulation and alienation as a theoretical register for apprehending contemporary erosions of the knowledge commons through the enclosure effects that follow in the wake of capitalist control of academic …


Biowatch South Africa And The Challenges In Enforcing Its Constitutional Right To Access To Information, Wilhelm Peekhaus Jan 2011

Biowatch South Africa And The Challenges In Enforcing Its Constitutional Right To Access To Information, Wilhelm Peekhaus

Wilhelm Peekhaus

This paper examines the difficulties encountered by Biowatch, a South African civil society environmental organization, in its attempts to obtain access to government information in respect of genetically engineered plants. After establishing the context of South Africa's access to information regime, including a brief discussion of several of its weaknesses, the paper engages in an extended account of the Biowatch case as an exemplar of some of the more pronounced challenges to the effective implementation of the country's access to information legislation. The elaboration of the case is based on interviews conducted with the Director of Biowatch and counsel from …


The Neoliberal University And Agricultural Biotechnology: Reports From The Field, Wilhelm Peekhaus Jan 2010

The Neoliberal University And Agricultural Biotechnology: Reports From The Field, Wilhelm Peekhaus

Wilhelm Peekhaus

Following in the footsteps of a variety of previous research that elaborates on the current state of affairs in academia, this article sets out the argument that neoliberalism and its corresponding iterations of science and technology and research funding policies in this country have implications for the types of knowledge that can be generated within and communicated without contemporary institutions of higher education. Using agricultural biotechnology as the lens through which to focus analysis, the article outlines a number of empirical examples that illustrate how the free flow of knowledge either critical of or not readily appropriated by capital is …


Monsanto Discovers New Social Media, Wilhelm Peekhaus Jan 2010

Monsanto Discovers New Social Media, Wilhelm Peekhaus

Wilhelm Peekhaus

As a number of critical commentators have pointed out for some years now, the Internet and other information and communication technologies are subject to capture by actors motivated less by calls for openness and democratic communication practices than by control, power, and profit. Employing the concept of “framing,” this paper offers a case study of how one company in particular, Monsanto, recently has engaged in vigorous efforts to develop and implement new communication and public relations strategies employing various forms of new social media. The findings are based on interviews with key communications personnel at Monsanto’s corporate head office in …


Primitive Accumulation And Re-Appropriation Of The Information Commons, Wilhelm Peekhaus Jan 2009

Primitive Accumulation And Re-Appropriation Of The Information Commons, Wilhelm Peekhaus

Wilhelm Peekhaus

This paper suggests that LIS might benefit from critical political economy as a way of theorizing and responding to enclosures of information commons. The autonomist Marxist re-invigoration of ‘primitive accumulation’ offers a register for apprehending contemporary erosions of the commons. Autonomist Marxism also helps conceptualize resistance to enclosures.


Research In The Biotech Age: Can Informational Privacy Compete?, Wilhelm Peekhaus Jan 2008

Research In The Biotech Age: Can Informational Privacy Compete?, Wilhelm Peekhaus

Wilhelm Peekhaus

This paper examines the privacy of personal medical information in the health research context. Arguing that biomedical research in Canada has been caught up in the government’s broader neo-liberal policy agenda that has positioned biotechnology as a strategic driver of economic growth, the author discusses the tension between informational privacy and the need for medical information for research purposes. Consideration is given to the debate about whether privacy for medical information serves or hinders the ‘public good’ in respect of medical research, and to discussions of informed consent as an element of ‘fair information practices’ designed to safeguard the privacy …


Personal Health Information In Canada: A Comparison Of Citizen Expectations And Legislation, Wilhelm Peekhaus Jan 2008

Personal Health Information In Canada: A Comparison Of Citizen Expectations And Legislation, Wilhelm Peekhaus

Wilhelm Peekhaus

This paper explores whether the Canadian legislative protections in place to safeguard medical privacy meet the expectations of Canadians. An overview of current governance systems designed to protect the privacy of personal health information at both the federal and provincial levels is first presented. This is followed by an empirical analysis of the results of a public opinion survey conducted to determine Canadian attitudes about medical privacy, particularly genetic privacy. The analysis highlights areas where legislation and public opinion converge and diverge.


Privacy For Sale - Business As Usual In The 21st Century: An Economic And Normative Critique, Wilhelm Peekhaus Jan 2007

Privacy For Sale - Business As Usual In The 21st Century: An Economic And Normative Critique, Wilhelm Peekhaus

Wilhelm Peekhaus

In this paper the author sets out to analyze and critique the commodification of privacy model advanced by Kenneth Laudon. Situating this marketbased model of privacy within the context of the resurgence of neo-classical economics of the last two decades, the author asserts that contemporary economic models, and in particular the intellectual property regime, have difficulty in adequately conceptualizing and treating information. When considering the implications extended by the commodification of privacy model for social and power relationships in society, the author argues that the model gives rise to increased surveillance and greater opportunities for social control and decentering of …


Personal Medical Information: Privacy Or Personal Data Protection? A Theoretical Approach To Understanding The Canadian Environment, Wilhelm Peekhaus Jan 2006

Personal Medical Information: Privacy Or Personal Data Protection? A Theoretical Approach To Understanding The Canadian Environment, Wilhelm Peekhaus

Wilhelm Peekhaus

No abstract provided.